Windows Vista already saw the release of its first service pack in May of this year. The first release was marred by compatibility difficulties, which forced Microsoft to take it offline for a short time. Amid slower than-hoped-for adoption growth, Microsoft launched a reinvigorated push to convince people to adopt Windows Vista, highlighted by its "I'm a PC" commercials.

Reports indicate that Microsoft is hard at work preparing the second generation service packs, to help further this new campaign. It has reportedly delivered a beta of the Vista pack to select hardware and software partners. This is similar to its current distribution method for early builds of Windows 7. Microsoft also posted a placeholder article for Vista SP2 on its Knowledge Base site.

Details on the new packs are scarce, but sources with Microsoft say that the biggest deliverable for the Server version will be the integration of Hyper-V bits with it. Sources also say the reason Microsoft is pushing to release the pack before Windows 7 is to limit confusion about whether to upgrade to Windows 7 or choose the newly more functional Vista.

The service pack for Windows Server 2008 will also reportedly be called SP2, despite it being the first service pack for the OS. This because Windows Server 2008 was built on Vista with the SP1 service pack included. Still, the first real service pack for the server OS will be an essential boost as many corporate partners are hesitant to buy an OS without service packs.

Microsoft is remaining tight-lipped about the server SP2 as well, except to acknowledge that its coming soon. A Microsoft spokesperson stated, "[The] comment [on Vista] serves for Windows Server as well; Microsoft is not commenting further on the timing/release plans for the WS08 SP2 at this time, but will share more details in the coming months."

The Beta 1 releases for the two SP2s are expected within the next couple months. This will put some pressure on Microsoft's developer team to quickly complete the service pack, as the Windows 7 Beta 1 is slated for mid-December release.

It is rumored that Microsoft may be including some aspects of Windows 7's functionality into Vista via the new service packs.

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Stop calling everything a feature and differentiate between feature and bloat. Feature has positive connotations. You wouldn't be missing anything if the animated search dog "feature" was removed from XP, and the same can be said for many of Vista's "features."

And to be clearer, it is possible to GAIN something with the removal of a feature. You gain the resources it took up, and the time it took from your life to do whatever it did. Bloat can cumulatively add up to do a lot of this kind of damage. Every feature should have its benefits weighed against the costs it incurs, and if the costs are greater, then it is bloat by definition.

I disagree. The only cost of "bloat" is about $0.10/GB, which is orders of magnitude less than the value of my time which would be needed in order to seek out and download add-ons from the Internet. Nearly all such features, when not used, just sit dormant on the HDD waiting for you to use them.

Therefore, I'm an advocate of the OS having a lot of built-in utilities that people commonly need.

I disagree back. If that's true, then why does everyone say you need 2gb in Vista's general environment just to get it to be as snappy as XP? No sh** about the programs just sitting on the HD not affecting system speed, I wasn't even talking about that.

Because your "everyone" doesn't know what on earth they're doing. You could squeeze decent Vista performance out of a 1GB machine if you wanted to... Does it come configured that way out of the box? Of course not. It comes configured to look pretty. By disabling silly things like window open/close, minimize/maximize animations you can greatly increase general "snappiness" without affecting the visual appearance at all. Go so far as to out aero and you'll find Vista is actually quite capable of running on some very lean hardware...

Check your local Visual Effects tab and you'll see the type of performance this OS is really capable of.

1) Visual effects are a property of your graphics card, and not related to RAM. Yes, if you have integrated graphics and low memory, your performance will be poor, and turning off effects may save enough GPU to make other parts feel snappier, but it is not relatd to RAM at all. It probably just feels faster because you don't see the animations any more. Computer Placebo Effet.

2) I just installed Vista home premium on an Acer AspireONE netbook with Intel 945 and 1 gig of RAM, and it runs Aero Glass and feels just as snappy as it did with its default XP Home installation. And the only "bloat" was a trial of office, MS Works, an video player, and Google desktop, so it's not a case of "fewer installed apps"

Yes, you can get decent performance out of Vista with 1 gig, but you don't have to do anything special to get it.

Nothing is a "property" of your graphics card that wasn't in main memory. The video subsystem is the least impacted because it has the most processing power and memory bandwidth % going untapped in typical 2D uses. Visual effects are definitely related to RAM quite a lot.

On the other hand, yes it feels faster because you don't see the animations any more but not because it is a Placebo, it's because of timing routines, additional amounts of time the system deliberately delays the actions so that you see them. For example if a menu fade happened as fast as the computer would display it, you wouldn't see it. If the menu fade progresses with a stall of a few ms per image then you start to see it happening. All these images and milliseconds add up.

You still don't get it, if you do the same things with XP for example, you again reap performance benefits and can run it on less memory.

An operating system's purpose is to be a means to run applications, it should not be the guideline for minimal system spec when talking about any budget computer made in the last 5+ years. The operating system should not be as bloated as possible up to the point it just barely seems less snappy, it should be the least overhead possible having only applicable code to the user's purposes running.

Did it occur to you that if all you cared about was OS snappiness, that you could slash the price of a computer nearly in half by not being a puppet to the upgrade cycle needed just to retain snappiness with the latest OS?

It's not about being capable of running on lean hardware, it's about senseless waste of resources. I don't know about you but I and many others do not buy faster computers just to retain the same snappiness, I want it substantially faster and more snappy than what it replaced if/when the OS is so much of a distraction that it constantly has to be dealt with instead of forgotten.

Bottom line - if you have thoughts about Vista at all that is a sign it is a problem. For example, you don't think about the firmware that runs your microwave much, do you? How about the code in your car's engine computer? An OS should be transparent allowing use of a device, not be the great burden of the device.

Under XP, you can save if certain animations are turned off because it's done on the CPU.

Under Vista (with Aero on) there is no difference. Whether you draw a window plain, stretched, rotated, transparent, or in some other way doesn't matter. The GPU does the drawing, not the CPU, and it is equally fast no matter what animation features are included. This is because it is better and faster for a GPU to draw as if all features were enabled than to check and use different code/hardware for drawing transparent pixels versus opaque ones.

That's why it is a placebo effect. You (personally) think it's snappier because you don't see the animation, but there is no difference whatsoever in the computer's ability to do work in either case.

The only real difference is the 1/4 of a second or so it takes the animation to complete. Since people don't start interacting with the window within that time-frame, there is again no difference in the usability or speed of the machine.

It does matter, Aero is more code that is processed by the CPU, more memory utilized, BEFORE the GPU renders it. How conveniently you overlook this but OOPS, we did already know Vista benchmarked slower and used more memory so how can't this be obvious?

There is no placebo effect, as I wrote in another post for an animation to be seen it has to have timing loops so the eye sees transistions from one state to another, a deliberate programeed slowdown even if the system were infinitely fast. Did you understand that? A computer 200 years from now, even that much faster, will have to slow down the animation so the user sees it happening to get the intended effect.

This is always the way it has been once computers got past 100 MHz or so.

Windows service packs are largely cumulative security updates & bug fixes and don't really add anything new. When Apple releases a new version of OS X, it does include a lot of new features. 10.5 for example included Time Machine, Spaces, a redesigned GUI, etc. Sure the new versions may not be radically different but neither is Vista when compared to XP. You can't really compare the two.

Myself, I'm part of the legions of "despicable ingrates" who have abandoned Windows. I really don't have much use for it any more. I use my Mac laptop for everyday stuff and I run Ubuntu on my desktop since I like the Compiz GUI for work. I really only use Windows now for playing my older games or the occasional video transcoding. I'm skipping Vista and I'm taking a wait and see approach with Windows 7. I can't love it or hate it until I see what it is.

Going to have to disagree with that one, but even if it were so, that's only one feature. Last I checked Apple released quite a few in each of its OS iterations. And besides, at a list price of $129 (full version), you could snag two of their "service packs" for less than what XP Pro retails for...

Please, nobody in their right mind would buy an full version windows. Just because you can't buy an OEM version of OSX does not mean windows users have to buy retail or the two are comparable. XP OEM can be had for less than 130 dollars, and Windows Vista home premium can be had for the same if you know where to look.

The old argument of OH OSX is cheaper is BS, it is not, not to mention that Office and Windows are usually offered as educational versions for a fraction of the price if you are a student or teacher. I have never paid full price for either Office of Windows.

I too have a full version of Vista but I got it cheaper through my university. It's handy having one Vista DVD which allows me to do a clean install on one machine and an upgrade on another without having any activation issues and both do update without a problem as well.

To those saying that you need 2GB to run Vista I can inform you all that it runs fine on 1GB. When I got my MacBook it only shipped with 1GB of RAM and I installed Vista Home Premium on it and it ran smoothly but more RAM always helps. In fact OSX 10.5 also loves RAM as it uses almost all of it when I pull up System Monitor.

Maybe people buying laptops with Vista pre-installed are dealing with the crapware loaded on to the system in order for that laptop to be offered at a low price.

I think the key point people are missing is while it runs fine on 1G of ram .. it loves memory and runs better with 2 and 4Gig configurations. The same held true with XP. Sure it ran ok with 256meg on launch but 512 - 1G and 2G it ran even better, so naturally people recommend more ram. And really why not? It's cheap.

so? I got my Vista Ultimate for free from Microsoft... and I still refuse to use it. I saw the bugs and problems early on and when I saw them still present even after SP1 (I kept a partition for testing fresh installs and using for a month or two at a time), I vowed to wait until W7 to see if they are actually listening or just creating Vista version 2.

Don't worry man I'm with you, I mean how can you take anyone seriously when they use the word 'bloat'. Dubed down PC magazine term for 'I don't know what I am talking about'.I mean what exactly are you expecting, a new OS, that runs on the same hardware as the day XP was released?

An OS should push the limits of hardware, and thats what the underlying features of Vista allowed. Complete reworking of windows API's, a controlled driver system, and improved performance at the cost of higher hardware requiredments.

As for the name, Windows 7 has just plain caught on, sure it is technically 6.1, but everyone now knows what Windows 7 is, Microsofts next OS, no need for their billion dollar marketing crew to come up with a name like 'Zune'.

I for one am looking forward to Windows 7, drivers will be a non issue (same driver architechture as Vista) and hopefully they will have optimized superfetch and indexing to limit what you guys like to call 'bloat'.

Yes, Vista should be able to run on the same hardware as XP did when released. Bloat. No OS should ever "push the limits of the hardware", that is ridiculous. The OS is not the desired end of a PC, it is the means to run applications.

That's just you, I'm a tech and in 2001 the majority of people still had 128 megs, price doesn't matter when a lot of people simply don't upgrade. Hell, I was working on a box eairler this week, an Athlon 2.8, not new but not stone age. It had 256 megs with on board video. Mind you this was a PC that was bought MUCH more recently than 2001. Hell I worked on 2 Vista box's last month that had 512 megs, these were new from the store not self upgraded XP boxes. The lady who has the 256 meg box wouldn't add more memory unless I recommended it. She has no idea what memory does and why she needs it. She is far more typical than you or I, who understand the need the memory and upgrade ours.

What you mean is the majority of users of OLDER computers not yet running XP had 64-128MB. Your first link already goes against your claim since they list several 256MB modules and only one 128MB module.

Back then any sane system buyer would buy at least half the capacity each memory slot could accept which was at least 256MB. Back then that meant 8 SDRAM chips on one side of the module PCB. That has always been typical with SDRAM PC DIMMs.

Lastly, you overlook one of the reasons they didn't use more memory, because if the OS and app fit within that memory space, it could slow down a system to put more modules in because the system read SPD timings to determine chipset parameters including things you often didn't even have manual control over.

Bottom line was during XP's launch new computers were coming with 256meg's of ram. That's why I said a few die-hards had jumped to 512 but they were not the norm. After XP had been out for a bit 512meg became the sweet spot for windows xp .. later that sweet spot went to 1Gig and finally 2Gig.

Anyway,

Overall with Vista 64 I've found that a default install runs fine with 2G. However, it really likes 4Gig and you do notice the improvements. Moving to 8G .. mmm not so much, atleast not for me. I wouldn't want to run it on 1Gig but hell I don't even want to run XP with that amount anymore either.

Yes, Vista should run on 128MB. I do think it reasonable that 256MB or even 512MB offers more performance (and so it did on XP), but the kind of crazy bloat we see now, when XP does in fact do what the majority of people need to do on a PC, is quite excessive.

Bottom line - YOU should be in control of what is running on your PC, how much memory is taken up by the OS, NOT MS. If you really really like feature XYZ, by all means you should run it. If you don't, you shouldn't have to.

Bahahahahahahhaha Windows 2000 required at least 64M of ram, and that was the bear minimum, do you really think a new OS when no PC is shipped with less than 512 M minimum in the past 4 years should be able to perform on a 128M machine.

Bottom line, nobody should ever listen to what you have to say, you once again used the word bloat even though you cant explain to me what 'bloat' is, and you think Vista should run on 128M of ram.

Hey why not go as far as say XP/Vista should run on 32 megs of ram, I mean I used to run 95 off only 32 smoothly, why not XP. Hey DOS worked fine, why even use windows, I mean it runs all my programs in nice fancy 320x240 resolution, who needs anything else?

Are you a moron? Every OS ever released that was not specifically designed to have low hardware requirements was designed to be used with better hardware. This includes Unix, Linux, OSX and Windows.

And when I said push the limits I meant if needs be, Windows Vista with all features activated can push the limits of your hardware, but nobody is saying you have to use all these features. Thats what Vista business and home editions are for, obviously you should not be using Aero on a PC from 2002 with an integrated Intel video card.

I just have to ask, how do you think progress is achieved? Please tell me how an operating system can get better without taking advantage of extra power. Each OS has a lifecycle, if you do not realize this then you have never met any developer, and in that case you obviously have no idea what you are talking about.

You're stuck on the idea that it's progress, that it's getting better. Fixing what is broken is progress. Making the OS be more and more of a specialized environment one has to manipulate just to do the same work as always is a step backwards.

You're saying nobody has to use features but in fact the OS is slower without them and still consumes more memory so it's like saying "Drive around with bricks in your trunk and just don't use them if you don't want to. Oh, you had another use for your trunk, too bad because I think bricks in your trunk is progress."

lol u're really preaching to the wrong people by going to a computer enthusiast site and telling them that we shouldnt progress hardware or software much, that all we need is 10 year old hardware and be happy w/ that.

we all get off on progress and seeing advances in technology, not stagnation.

Oh no. God forbid we should upgrade computers every once in a blue moon.

No thanks, I'll stick with my Pentium Pro running Windows 3.1...

Seriously, new operating systems take advantage of new hardware. If you don't have the hardware to run the OS, then don't use it in the first place. It's really simple. It's also starting to get really annoying to hear people with 10-year old computers who are bitching because Vista won't run. Duh.

The problem isn't so much that people don't want to upgrade their computers, it's that they walk into a store and want the absolute cheapest one. On top of that, they already think Vista sucks because of what their neighbor's best friend said and absolutely lament the idea of replacing their evidently flawless XP box despite the performance benefits of newer machines. Vendors don't make the situation any better, cramming loads and loads of their own software on top of what Vista is already sporting, even on their low-end machines.

Take a brand new HP out of the box and it'll be running anywhere from 70 to 90 processes by the time it hits the desktop. Take 30 seconds, absolutely gut your MSConfig startup and services tabs of anything and everything non-Microsoft, and you'll soon find yourself with anywhere from 30 to 40.

Better yet, make use of that OEM key on the bottom, slap on a clean install of Vista, and enjoy =)

I love how the only mention of SP1 in this article in relation to Vista (as opposed to Server 2008) seems to imply that it was a failure. SP1 fixed TONS of issues that Vista had and easily put it on par (or better, IMO) with XP SP2 in terms of reliability.

If the Vista SP1 patch "fixed TONS of issues that Vista had", WHY did Microsoft release Vista <SP1? WHY did Microsoft release Vista before it was ready? Was Microsoft so short on cash they had to release Vista early thereby cheating every single Windows customer in the world, all 250 million of them? Was Steve Ballmer so, IMO, in dire need of his stock options going higher that he just had to release Vista before it was ready?

B ^D

quote: SP1 fixed TONS of issues that Vista had and easily put it on par (or better, IMO) with XP SP2 in terms of reliability

I used to share this viewpoint, but with the advancement in hardware as of late, I don't mind all the extra code in the operating system. In fact, I welcome it. It is fine as long as it doesn't hinder the computer's responsiveness.

Bingo, yes features like superfetch and indexing can eat up resources, but if you got them, why not use them. With the dual and quad core processors of the day, if you really think the few extra cpu cycles being used slows down your computer, you are kidding yourself. Superfetch definately makes programs you use on a daily basis respond quicker than any previous windows OS, and indexing makes searches and sorting a breeze compared to XP. Sure Google has the same kind of software, but they also use up these same resources, and I have found that Vista indexing just works better.